NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- BP and a committee representing plaintiffs suing over the 2010 Gulf oil spill have reached an agreement, a federal judge said late Friday night.

As a result of the agreement that will be filed with the court for approval, the trial that was scheduled to begin Monday has been postponed for a second time, Judge Carl Barbier said.

No new date was immediately set.

The settlement will likely result in a realignment of the parties in this litigation and require substantial changes to the current trial plan, Barbier said. He didn't elaborate, and there was no mention in his order of anything about the status of BP's talks with the federal government and other parties.

GoToMeeting
Over the past day, we’ve heard from many great Citrix customers about our advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Show. These customers have expressed their growing concern that some of his recent comments seem inconsistent with the core values Citrix has always stood for – humility, integrity and respect.

While Citrix obviously does not control any show’s content or endorse opinions of their hosts, we do take the concerns of our customers seriously. When they are upset about something, we listen. After careful consideration, we have decided to discontinue our advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Some of the same activists that persuaded advertisers to boycott Glenn Beck’s television show on Fox News in 2009 are now mobilizing against Rush Limbaugh in the wake of his verbal attacks on a Georgetown University law school student this week.

Actually, they are remobilizing. A Twitter account, “Stop Rush,” which has been dormant since late 2010, woke up on Wednesday, when Mr. Limbaugh first called the student, Sandra Fluke, a “slut.”

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The “Stop Rush” Twitter account asked on Thursday, “Are y’all ready to @StopRush? Getting the strong sense that it’s time and the feedback has been there so far. Spread the word.”

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Mr. Carusone similarly ran a Twitter account called “Stop Beck” in 2009 that targeted Glenn Beck for calling Mr. Obama a racist. He and other activists and groups contacted advertisers, hundreds of whom eventually asked Fox to keep their ads off Mr. Beck’s show.

‘Grisly reports’ out of Syria tell of torture, summary executions in Homs

By Reuters
Friday, March 2, 2012 20:03 EST

BEIRUT/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had received “grisly reports” that Syrian government forces were arbitrarily executing, imprisoning and torturing people in the battle-scarred city of Homs after rebel fighters had fled.

Ban’s comments came as a wounded British photographer, who escaped Homs earlier this week, said he had witnessed Syrian troops carrying out a massacre in the city’s Baba Amro district, which had become a symbol of a year-long uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Opposition activists told Reuters Syrian troops, who had bombarded the district for weeks, had started hunting down and killing insurgents who had stayed to cover a rebel retreat on Thursday.

The rebel withdrawal was seen as a major setback for the armed revolt, that began with largely peaceful protests inspired by the “Arab Spring,” but escalated after a bloody government crackdown.

In my post this morning I provided a list of companies who reportedly advertised on Rush Limbaugh’s show. I have personally called them and this is my report of what I have learned.

1. Pro-flowers: Their sales line was so busy that I was automatically disconnected.

2. Sleep Train: No longer advertising

3. e-harmoney: No longer advertising

4. Carbonite: Carbonite has not discontinued their support of the show. The representative I spoke with simply said that they advertised with a wide variety of shows, and that the views expressed did not represent theirs. I explained that by advertising on his show they are making it possible for him to use a public radio show to give voice to his foul and distasteful comments. You may be interested in e-mailing a manager at their corporate office to share your views at : dfriend@carbonite.com.

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UPDATE: ”Brenda” with Auto Zone called and indicated they do not advertise with the Rush Limbaugh show.

9. Legal Zoom: They indicated they are “looking into this matter.” You can reach them at 800-773-0888 to encourage to look a little faster.

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11. American Forces Network: I contacted various numbers and got a message at each. The number that I would recommend you call is 301-222-6236 which is the number for T.V. and radio show contacts. You can also reach them by e-mail at American Forces Network@MyAFN.net.

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Thus the following companies need further encouragement to discontinue their advertising on the Rush Limbaugh show:

Sleep Number Sara ‏ @SleepNumberSara Close
Recent comments by Rush Limbaugh do not align w/our values, so we made decision to immediately suspend all advertising on that program.
Retweeted by Keith Olbermann

Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke on Friday choked up as she recalled an encouraging phone call from President Barack Obama after conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh smeared her as a “slut.”

“You were in our green room getting ready to come on and the White House tells us that we can reveal that you just got off the phone with President Obama,” MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell explained.

“Yes, I did,” Fluke agreed. “He encouraged me and supported me and thanked me for speaking out about the concerns of American women.”

“And what was really personal for me was he said to tell my parents that they should be proud. And that meant a lot because Rush Limbaugh questioned whether my family would be proud of me,” she added, fighting back tears.

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

Email-ID 389793
Date 2010-12-10 03:34:36
From mongoven@stratfor.com
To morson@stratfor.com, defeo@stratfor.com, pubpolblog.post@blogger.com
A hero?
Avaaz is right. It's not illegal but it does make you accessory to being
an asshole. Real people are being tortured by governments that Avaaz and
Assange probably like more than the US, all the while the two of them
denounce US 'torture' at Guantanamo.
They are like the crazy IPS/CISPES/SDS people who were so full of hate
that they could not see that they are doing so much more bad than they at
doing good.
I'm in favor of using whatever trumped up charge is available to get this
guy and his servers off the streets. And I'd feed that shit head soldier
to the first pack of wild dogs I could find.
Or perhaps just do to him whatever the Iranians are doing to our sources
there.